Inside Time becomes gutter press!

Inside Time becomes gutter press!

Inside Time the so-called national newspaper for prisoners, in my view, has been sliding down hill for sometime now. So much so, that when a journalist asked me to explain the difference between Inside Time and Converse (so far its only rival), I was unable to do so and I said that they were both as bad as each other.

For example, in the latest issue, May, Inside Time has stooped to misleading prisoners with two items in its Newsround pages (not available in the online edition) on pages 11 and 13.

1)"Human rights court will be reined in over deportation

Failed asylum seekers and foreign prisoners face restrictions on their ability to challenge decisions to deport them under plans announced on April 27 to rein in the powers of the European Court of Human Rights (The Times writes).

The court should be prepared to intervene only in the "most exceptional circumstances", according to a declaration issued after a Council of Europe meeting in Turkey. Ministers are also looking at charging a fee for appealing to the Strasbourg court in a measure intended to cut the number of people applying to overturn British court decisions.

Britain joined the council's 46 other countries in signing a declaration intended to curb the court. The direction, which the court is unlikely to ignore, follows growing concerns at Westminster over a serious [sis] of human rights rulings and the frequency and number of appeals to Strasbourg".

2)"EU ultimatum to give prisoners right to vote

The Prime Minister has been given a six-month deadline to produce legislation to end the blanket ban on votes for conviced [sic] prisoners.

He was given an ultimatum by the European Court of Human Rights in a decision which will enrage Tory backbenchers, who are opposed to giving prisoners the vote and deeply hostile to the court. The court dismissed a government request for an appeal hearing and said the verdict on ending the blanket ban was final".

In relation to 1), "Human rights court will be reined in over deportation", is an inaccurate statement. Who is going to do the reigning in, the UK? For starters, the ECtHR itself has the jurisdiction (power) which extends to all matters concerning the interpretation or application of the Convention. The UK has no power to usurp the Court's jurisdiction. Secondly, the UK is but 1/47th of the Council of Europe and any reforms to the Court or Convention requires the agreement of all 47 Member States of the Council of Europe. Given the Council of Europe's concerns about deportations to countries which may torture or kill deportees, it is highly unlikely that the UK will get the required support for reform of the Court in this respect.

"Failed asylum seekers and foreign prisoners face restrictions on their ability to challenge decisions to deport them under plans announced on April 27 to rein in the powers of the European Court of Human Rights (The Times writes)". This is also an inaccurate statement. No such plan was announced. Rather, this relates to a MoJ press release announcing the gist of the speech which Kenneth Clarke intended to deliver to the Izir Conference in Turkey. The MoJ press officer put spin upon the substance, and so did the Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and The Times. The reality is that under the Convention the right to individual petition to the Court remains the same for all applicants regardless of the substance of their applications. The Court treats each case on its individual merit. Therefore, those mentioned above do not and will not in future face restrictions.

"The court should be prepared to intervene only in the "most exceptional circumstances", according to a declaration issued after a Council of Europe meeting in Turkey. Ministers are also looking at charging a fee for appealing to the Strasbourg court in a measure intended to cut the number of people applying to overturn British court decisions".

The Izir Conference follows on from the Interlaken Conference and the topic is reform of the ECtHR. Part of the problem being the 120,000 backlog of cases before the Court. Many of these cases will be declared inadmissible, but also too many cases relate to Member States failing to comply with the Court judgments. For example, following Hirst v UK (No2) being ignored by the UK there are now 3,500 more cases by prisoners before the Court. This poses a challenge to the Court which the Court intends to address. Following on from the Interlaken Declaration came the Izir Declaration. Part of this reads: "Invites the Court, when examining cases related to asylum and immigration, to assess and take full account of the effectiveness of domestic procedures and, where these procedures are seen to operate fairly and with respect for human rights, to avoid intervening except in the most exceptional circumstances". Notice that this is just an invitation and not a "should" as in a mandatory action. The problem in relation to the UK is that often there is no effective remedy, and that the procedures tend not to be fair and this only leads to abuse of human rights. Basically, what the UK is asking is that it be allowed to abuse human rights without international interference. However, unless the UK tidies its act up there will be more and not less international scrutiny. The Council of Europe "invites the Committee of Ministers to continue to examine the issue of charging fees to applicants", but as many of the Member States oppose the introduction of a fee it is doubtful that this obstacle to access to the Court will be allowed to occur.

"Britain joined the council's 46 other countries in signing a declaration intended to curb the court. The direction, which the court is unlikely to ignore, follows growing concerns at Westminster over a serious [sic] of human rights rulings and the frequency and number of appeals to Strasbourg". This is again an inaccuracy, the Izir Declaration is not about curbing the powers of the Court. On the contrary, the Lisbon Treaty, in particular Protocol 14, actually extends the jurisdiction of the Court and gives the Council of Europe and Committee of Ministers new powers. Shortly, I expect that the UK will be feeling the brunt of these new powers for daring to challenge the Court's authority over the Prisoners Votes Case. As already stated, it was not a direction but an invitation, and it is very likely, in spite of what the Inside Time and The Times state, that the Court will ignore the invite. Given the growing concerns at Westminster over a series of human rights rulings and the frequency and number of appeals to Strasbourg, this is evidence of a systemic failure in human rights protection in the UK, and is surely an issue which the Inside Time should be addressing rather than cosying up to the Establishment and being part of the problem and not the cure?

In relation to 2), "EU ultimatum to give prisoners right to vote", of course it is the Council of Europe, and not the EU, which has issued the ultimatum!

"The Prime Minister has been given a six-month deadline to produce legislation to end the blanket ban on votes for conviced [sic] prisoners". The UK, and not the Prime Minister, has been given 6 months to introduce legislation to end the blanket ban on votes for convicted prisoners.

"He was given an ultimatum by the European Court of Human Rights in a decision which will enrage Tory backbenchers, who are opposed to giving prisoners the vote and deeply hostile to the court. The court dismissed a government request for an appeal hearing and said the verdict on ending the blanket ban was final". It is a pity that Inside Time failed to identify that the decision was reached in the case of Greens and MT v UK. Also that as the UK had already appealed and lost its appeal in Hirst v UK (No2), that there is no provision under the Convention to appeal against a final decision in one case by way of argument in another case. This would have amounted to an abuse of process.

Finally, I am not sure whether this down hill slide of the Inside Time is because of the incompetence of Noel Smith (compared to John Bowers) or whether John Roberts has been at the helm too long and is getting stale or going senile!

UPDATE: I Tweeted this article and received this tweet in response...

loveburglars LoveBurglars
@
@Jailhouselawyer It's an awful paper!